Red Cross Asks Funds For Yahweh Ex-tenants

November 11, 1986|By JEAN THOMPSON, Miami Bureau

American Red Cross officials plan to ask Opa-locka and Dade County this week to pay for the shelter and supplies given to 130 people displaced Oct. 30 when the city condemned apartments controlled by the Yahweh religious sect.

The agency spent an estimated $17,000 on meals, diapers, daytime shelter and overnight lodging -- in some cases for nine days -- for 30 families, Greater Miami chapter spokeswoman Sonia Cohen said Monday.

``Typically, we do not provide this kind of assistance for man-created problems,`` Cohen said.

``We bent our policy somewhat,`` she said. ``It`s not our normal responsiblity to house people because they get evicted.``

The costs pushed an already strained budget for emergency services into the red, she said. The agency allocated $65,000 for those services for its fiscal year that began July 1 and had spent $52,000 when the Opa-locka crisis began, she said.

Services in the region will not be affected, she said. Budget overruns for emergency shelter services are not unusual.

Last fiscal year, the chapter spent $198,000 more than the $69,000 it budgeted, Cohen said. More than 2,000 victims of fire and natural disasters received aid, and the national Red Cross office paid the difference.

Because the Opa-locka situation did not involve a natural disaster, Opa-locka and county officials agreed to share the costs when they called in the Red Cross, but no one realized how much the costs would be, she said.

More than 80 of the displaced tenants in Opa-locka were children, and at least $1,000 went for disposable diapers the first day, she said.

The last of the families moved Friday from the agency`s shelter at the Gold Dust Motel on Biscayne Boulevard.

Opa-locka officials are expected to discuss the shelter costs at a commission meeting Wednesday, a city spokesman said.